Maria’s note: Guess who’s the winner?

Hours ahead of the final recount of the votes, we already know the winner of the Egyptian presidential elections: the Supreme Council of Armed Forces, SCAF. Less than an hour ago they have issued new amendments to the Constitutional Declaration in what I consider their checkmate movement. Analysts, liberals and media have called it a coup d’etat.

SCAF has made clear who is the one in –ilegimate- power. Whoever wins the elections, does not really matter. With this declaration, SCAF completely safeguards its power and interests in the country. SCAF strips the coming president of any influence and authority – which sounds very convenient when the results until now point Morsi as the winner.

Placing bets during this time in Egypt is a pointless crusade, but we can try to guess. I believe SCAF has underestimated the sociopolitical machinery of the Muslim Brotherhood and in the last moment, when they have seen that Morsi could perfectly win these runoffs, SCAF has had to issue this declaration; just in case their closest candidate, Ahmed Shafik, did not win. Although they dissolved the Parliament two days before the elections, it seems they want to make sure that the Islamists will not control any governmental body.

From now on SCAF has authority over the Constituent Assembly. They retain legislative power and have the right to assume the responsibilities of Parliament; the same parliament that is in charge of writing the new constitution.

The extremely low turnout of the second round is anevidence of the disenchantment that reins among Egyptian voters. Egypt has 80 million people; 50 millions are registered to vote. The turnout of the runoffs has reached around 40%, which means that only 20 millions of the 80 have voted.  

So it seems clear is that the coming president will not represent Egypt; neither Morsi nor Shafiq.